Monday, February 7, 2011

A simple '3 step' primer before your sales calls

I am sure all of us are involved in making sales calls several times your careers (whoever said that sales calls are made only by sales people). Here are some tips to make your sales calls more relevent and increase its chances of success


1) Have a strong reference to get into the call
Using names of people that the contact knows always helps. An earlier meeting, if that has happened will also help. Get as personal as possible to make sure that you can reach out to your target prospect and he is in receiving mode to hear what you want to communicate


2) Have a value-prop that is personalized to the contact. 
Important that is personalized, not just for the company that you are calling, but for the contact that you are currently calling. Pre call research about the contact and the company can help a lot in preparing for this step. Social media only eases matters


3) Define a next step that you would like to achieve
You never achieve sales closures in one sales call,so define what you would like as the next step. The next step could be to have him accept you sending some info to him/her. Be clear that you are trying to achieve this objective and not aiming for a super-human effort. 


Any other ideas, please contribute


Thanks & Best Regards,
Atul Dhakappa


www.xenia-consulting.com